North West Enquirer - Regeneration Supplement

[b4mmy]

Here's an opportunity to contribute to important regeneration media for all you passionate wordsmiths!

The North West Enquirer

The paper itself will be a paid-for weekly published on a Thursday and distributed with the nationals to retailers across the region.

It is being established by Nick Jaspan, who will be publisher, and Bob Waterhouse, editor, who previously worked together founding Newsco to rescue Insider in the early 1990s.

The Enquirer will be aimed at the North West’s 1.3m AB adults and will cover the regional news and issues that fall between the agendas of local and national newspapers.

The circulation area takes in the widest definition of the North West, from Crewe to Carlisle, from the North Wales border to the High Peaks, and the Isle of Man.

The Enquirer is based in Bank House, Faulkner Street, Manchester.


North West Regeneration Supplement

The supplement will be a pull-out section published in the North West Enquirer at the start of each month, with the first publication in May.
We are planning to publish 64 pages on heavier newsprint than the main paper, on a 50:50 editorial to advertising ratio, with full colour available if necessary.

Reader profile includes:
o Professionals working in regeneration
o Generally interested residents and businesses
o Those with a vested interest in particular areas or programmes
o People who want to get or feel involved in regeneration
o Residents who live and work in different parts of the region

A broad range of subjects will be covered in the regeneration supplement, including:
o housing
o commercial property
o environment
o community
o enterprise
o public sector
o architecture and design
o planning
o government policy

But this is by no means an exhaustive list and please feel free to share ideas for other areas of potential interest.

Content will combine the news values of a newspaper with the reflective tone of a monthly magazine. This means you can expect a variety of lighter and heavier styles, harder and softer story angles, both humorous comment and serious investigation.

Broadly speaking there will be four main types of material:
• news
• short regular features
• longer in-depth features
• reference data


Staff

Paul Unger will be editing the monthly supplement on a freelance basis (NB: as well as continuing existing work for other publications) which entails both planning and writing articles.

In addition, there will be commissioned features written by North West freelance journalists, many of whom will be known to you already.
There will also be a full-time regeneration correspondent on the main paper, whose name has yet to be confirmed.


Next step

We are currently planning the first edition so please start sending in your ideas for news and features, no matter how big or small, daft or daring.
I am not setting a deadline for submissions.

Spread the word – this launch will hopefully prove to be a significant media milestone for the region; the first such paper in England, which could have a long and important role to play in the development of the North West. Initially that depends almost as much on marketing the new product as on the quality of our editorial, so please inform contacts and clients it is being published and urge them to build the habit of picking it up on a Thursday. Add the Enquirer to your mailing lists and brief your clients to include us in their publicity plans. And, of course, save all of your exclusives for us.

Paul Unger
pmrunger@aol.com

[Gareth]

It's like we've been here before, isn't it?

[Tony Sebo]

'North West'!

[Fitzroy]

Good example of how to get something off the ground.

Best of luck!

North West?

Give it a rest, we've moved on.

[liverpolitan]

Originally Posted by b4mmy

The North West Enquirer

The paper itself will be a paid-for weekly published on a Thursday and distributed with the nationals to retailers across the region.

Paul Unger
pmrunger@aol.com

What is "The North West"? Do you mean that failed old artificial region created by Government and used to siphon resources from Liverpool and into Manchester? And you add a few exta areas on just to boost circulation? There is no such region. Stuff it and your paper.

[Awayo]

It sounds like a good idea - for Manchester.

Why not call it Manchester Enquirer?

[Blabbernsmoke]

North West! What a load of shite. What will it be next? 'The Northern Hemisphere Times'?

The North West is a construct that has been invented by some very crafty, but also annoying and stupid, politicians who are trying to make careers for themselves, pushing an artificial area that they have invented. Why on earth should people think in these so-called regional terms? There is no market for such a thing and it will fail without government subsidy. People in Barrow-on-Furness want to read about news that affects their very local area, and probably national news. This is the case in most places and has grown naturally over time. This state of affairs reflects consumer preferences about the information they want to read.

Why the fuck would somebody in Runcorn want to read about Burnley, or Manchester, or Barrow- if they never even visit these places or care about them???

This is just a ridiculous political project, designed to erode peoples' natural and evolved sense of place and locality. No doubt it is part of trying to improve people so that they can fit more convenitently into the European/globalising project.

It will fail. And I will laugh.

[b4mmy]

The journalist in question is resident in LIVERPOOL and he wants to write about your stuff.

If you dont want to contribute fine. I'm just putting it up here... and I am equally happy for one of you guys to speak to a moderator to get the thread removed.

Yes... I feel a sense of dejavu too.....

[Metrolink]

Bladders - over reaction there - they are simply trying to maximise their circulation.

Look at the free Metro - we all get the same North West version every morning - same with the tabloid papers we all get a north west version - with slightly different stories than the south east, or south west or any other part of the country.

Maybe the idea is one day to get this publication to be national, but they are starting from humble beginings.

Wind your necks in and see what it has in it - the reaction to such a simple story tells a thousand stories.

Out of interest, do any of you object to your national papers having a 'north west' bias, as opposed to a Liverpool or Merseyside one?

They seem quite successful.

[Fitzroy]

Originally Posted by b4mmy

The journalist in question is resident in LIVERPOOL and he wants to write about your stuff.

If you dont want to contribute fine. I'm just putting it up here... and I am equally happy for one of you guys to speak to a moderator to get the thread removed.

Yes... I feel a sense of dejavu too.....

Well, at least it has provided you with some free market research on areas that are unlikely to be 'on message'!

As you know, journalists are ten a penny. Editors/publishers make the running.

[Blabbernsmoke]

This paper has no future as a truly regional piece of news. People do not think in regional terms- unless they are self serving politicians, planners, or consultants who need to waste time creating 'regional policy' and attempting to think more strategically over vast spaces.

The who regional project is a massive waste of time and money.

I'm sorry to piss on your Cornflakes, but this is just non-thinking bull shit. Before we know it, the whole of the UK will be one city called, I don't know, "Airstrip 1", which will be the "North East" Regional of the United States of Europe. I wonder who it all serves? I'm sure Orwell would have a few thoughts on this matter.

[liverpolitan]

I call for a boycott. This publication will presumably try to take wealth from Liverpool (in the form of advertising revenue) to pay for a Manchester based operation. It will presumably push a completely false "regional" message (eg the old BBC North West lie about "our region") that is alien and damaging to Liverpool.

Take your nasty paper away. It should be burned in the streets.

[Metrolink]

Liverpolitan - do you ever buy any national news paper?

They have regional editions (not just the TV pages) and many have offices in Manchester - are they simply draining money from Liverpool to Manchester???

Should all papers that have regions set on TV areas (as they tend to for simplicities sake) be burnt?

[Metrolink]

what about Autotrader?

NorthWest base (for a north west publication) is in Manchester - does that deserve burning?

[Blabbernsmoke]

Trammy, I am a consumer expressing my taste preferences. I read naitonals becasue they have some vaguely interesting news relating to the economy and internaitonal affaris- which affect and interest me.

I am not interested in regional nonsense. I have Metro on the train and it is no more than a glorified student newspaper.

If i'm not interested then that is my choice. If many other consumers aren't interested then it will be doomed. Sorry.

[Toadboy]

Never seen the 'Metro' in Liverpool.

Sounds like an advertising business rather than a focussed magazine, there's enough going on in Liverpool and Manchester to fill the pages and generate local revenues.

[Blabbernsmoke]

Originally Posted by Toadboy

Never seen the 'Metro' in Liverpool.

Sounds like an advertising business rather than a focussed magazine, there's enough going on in Liverpool and Manchester to fill the pages and generate local revenues.

I thought the Echo and DP did that in Liverpool dear.

[Metrolink]

You be correct, and to be honest I'm not interested in the slightest.

However, your previous posts have suggested that somehow this is some conspiracy against Liverpool by trying to force you to accept the NW region - there is likely to be distribution set up across the area in question to distribute magazines such as Radio Times, TV Times etc that have a Granada agenda - therefore, it probably makes sense to have this as your area if you want to start off small and grow - it fits with the existing distribution lines for existing press.

[liverpolitan]

Well Metro, national media who have depended on Manchester based journo's to cover Liverpool have traditionally failed to do their jobs well - they have viewed the city as alien, and have mis-reported based upon their often hostile perceptions. The BBC has always done this, for example the Manchester-based journos there who gratuitously fed the "self pity" myth with a story about a dead animal mistaken as a dead baby. The Manchester Guardian has a long tradition of unfair and prejudiced mis-reporting of Liverpool. The Sun is still to a large extent boycotted for mis-reporting Liverpool based upon hostile stereotyping. So I would like national media to locate journalists in Liverpool or use Liverpool-based freelances, to report on Liverpool, and not use Manchester operations (including editors and sub-editors - who select the stories they think are newsworthy, and that is often bad news from Liverpool).

However, to actually try to fabricate a region, by such phrases as "our region", or suggesting that there is a "regional" identity for the "North West" is more serious. So I would boycott any pretend-regional publication, and certainly any publication with the words "North West" in its title. It's a hopeless idea, Blabs is right, it will fail, and Awayo is right that they should do what they obviously want to do - serve Manchester - and stop seeing the Liverpool region as a captive market.

[the golden vision]

The North West edition of the Daily Mirror, a few years back, had a column,titled "city watch" which was about Manchester. A few weeks later it dawned on them they were selling the paper in Liverpool and it was pulled.